NEW YORK, April 28, 2006
Hollywood's Biggest Scandal Ever?
Scribe: Wiretap Case Of Ex-Private Eye To Stars Just May Be
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Play CBS Video Video Hollywood Intrigue Bryan Burrough, co-author of the Vanity Fair article "Inside Hollywood's Biggest Wiretap Scandal," joins Rene Syler to discuss the Anthony Pellicano case.
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Bryan Burrough, who co-authored a Vanity Fair piece on Hollywood scandal, on The Early Show, April 28, 2006. (CBS/The Early Show)
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Anthony Pellicano in August 1993 (AP)
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Photo Essay Celebrity Mug Shots Stars rarely look their best when they land in hot water.
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Interactive Domestic Surveillance The debate over the Bush administration's controversial wiretapping program.
Burrough told Syler that a tape of what may be a 2001 conversation between the then-divorcing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman has entered the picture: "We know Tom Cruise, via his attorney, hired Pellicano on at least two occasions. And it got so bad during the divorce with Nicole Kidman that Nicole widely assumed that she was, in fact, being taped. We don't know that she was. But she would get on the phone during conversations and say, 'Tom, are you listening? Am I saying the right thing?' And eventually, we're told, investigators did find a single tape of her on the telephone. We don't know where that came from."
Comedian Chris Rock is the latest big name mentioned in connection to the case.
"We know," Burrough explained to Syler, "that Rock, through his attorney, hired Pellicano when a young woman several years ago accused him of fathering her child. It does not appear that Rock was the child's father, however. She alleged she had been wiretapped and harassed."
Among other mega-names to have come up: Sylvester Stallone.
"It's funny," Burrough remarked. "Stallone used to hire Pellicano, and then Pellicano went after him for somebody else. In this case, the indictments allege Stallone was wiretapped during a business dispute with his former business manager."
Burrough added, "Right now, the targets of the probe that everyone's talking about are big studio executives and big agents — people that folks in Texas probably don't read about every day.
"But there are hundreds of stars, directors, producers, who are one step removed from this at the moment, because their attorneys are under investigation.
"A lot of people are pretty scared."
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